Niagara, host team at the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association (OCAA) men’s basketball championships taking place March 1-3 in Welland, will be playing Lambton and St. Clair for the second time this season. They lost the opening game of the home-and-home against the Lions 100-95 and beat the Saints 93-78.

‘Excellent’ compete level

A loss to the three-defending provincial gold medallists had a silver lining for Niagara in women’s college basketball.

While the Knights were unable to recover after surrendering 27 third-quarter points in a 78-48 loss to Humber, the coaching staff was happy with the team’s effort and energy.

“For the most part we are pleased that our level of competing was excellent,” head coach Mike Beccaria said. “The mood in the locker room after was that we should take the positive from that,

“It’s a good position from which to build on.”

Niagara remains in a shooting slump, from beyond the 3-point arc especially.

“It’s something that needs to be addressed.”

St. Catharines native Mary Ingribelli paced the Knights in points with 18. Governor Simcoe also had eight rebounds as Niagara dropped to 10-6 in league play.

The Niagara women have already beaten both Lambton, 69-39, and St. Clair, 82-62, this season.

Swept up in winning

The Niagara Knights hosted Fanshawe Wednesday night hoping to sweep the season series with the Falcons and extend their winning streak in women’s volleyball to four games.

Niagara improved to 10-6 with four-set victories over the Boreal Vipers and Cambrian Golden Shield last weekend in Sudbury.

Set scores against Boreal were 25-11, 21-25, 25-8, 25-10 and 19-25, 25-22, 25-14, 25-19 over Cambrian.

In the victory over the Vipers the Knights were led by 3rd year outside hitter Jordan Koslowski, who finished with a match-high 12 kills. Niagara also had strong offensive showings from outside hitters Nicole Pirillo, a Thorold native, and Zeniah Pinnock with 11 and 10 kills respectively.

Koslowski and Rachel Rivers provided the one-two punch against Cambrian contributing 17 and 15 kills. Shayna Graham of Welland led all players with 12 digs from the libero position.

Niagara was able to rest some of its starters in the back-to-back road games.

“The game was a great opportunity for some of our younger players to get meaningful playing time, and I was quite pleased with how they responded,” Knights head coach Nathan Janzen said.

He praised the play of Natasha Desjardins, calling the Welland native and Jean Vanier grad the team’s “unsung hero.”

“She was doing a little bit of everything, but filling up the box score with aces, digs and assists.”

“Our serving was really good both nights, with a really good ace-to-error ratio,” head coach Nathan Groenveld said. “More importantly I feel like our serving was a show of our aggressiveness in both matches.”

Against Boreal, the Knights were led offensively Mitch Sawatsky. The second-year outside hitter from St. Catharines contributed six kills on just nine attempts.

Jake Williamson, also from St. Catharines, had 18 kills and fourth-year setter Ben Fillmore had 29 assists against Cambrian.

Niagara hosted the 15-0 Fanshawe Wednesday night at the Athletic Centre in Welland.

The Falcons swept the Knights 3-0 in their home half of the season series.